Drain-baby mom ‘hoped infant would be detected’
Mother watched as newborn was plucked from drain
● The Durban mother who left her newborn baby in a stormwater drain last year says she gave birth alone on an outdoor staircase, left her baby in the drain and then watched from nearby as the dramatic operation by rescue workers to retrieve the infant unfolded.
“I went onto the balcony of my home and witnessed the rescue operation take place, which took several hours and involved a gathering crowd. In the latter stages, I proceeded on foot to the scene and witnessed my infant child being recovered,” the 33-year-old mother said in a statement to Ntuzuma magistrate Erenskia Lagrange.
“The sight of that, coupled with the cheering and jubilation of the crowd of several hundred people completely overwhelmed me with extreme anxiety, deep regret and remorse.”
The Newlands mother, who cannot be named to protect the identities of the baby and two older children, pleaded guilty this week to a charge of attempting to murder her baby girl.
She will be sentenced next month.
In her plea, read out by her attorney, Jacques Botha, the mother said she already had two children, aged 16 and 10, born out of wedlock when she fell pregnant in May 2018. Neither father had contributed to the upkeep of the children, she was unemployed and relied completely on her mother.
“In July that year my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had surgery and then radiotherapy and chemotherapy. She became so ill and was bedridden. I was nursing her. I was embarrassed to tell her that I was having a third child out of wedlock so I concealed my pregnancy. The only person who knew was the father of the child, who was completely unsupportive,” she said in her statement.
She said that in February last year she went with the father of the child to a casino in Pietermaritzburg and started experiencing labour pains. After a fight, he took her home.
At about 1am, when the family was asleep, she fetched a blanket and a pair of scissors and went to the dark staircase outside the house and gave birth to the baby girl unassisted.
She cut the umbilical cord and then noticed she was bleeding profusely.
“The baby was crying. I went into the garage and wrapped her in a blanket and tried to stem the bleeding. I became emotionally overwhelmed by a feeling of abandonment and desperation. I sat on my own for almost an hour.”
She then decided to find a “suitable place where I could take my baby where she would hopefully be discovered and my pregnancy would go undetected”.
She went to a local school but could not get in, then to a church but realised she would have to climb over a wall with the baby to get in.
“With dawn approaching, and anxious to conceal the birth, I stopped thinking logically. I was running out of time. I wrapped the baby in a plastic packet. I lay on my stomach and placed her on a small concrete ledge inside of a stormwater drain at about 4.30am. I believed that she would be easily detected and rescued by early morning pedestrians.”
She returned home and “quietly cleaned up and concealed all evidence of having given birth”.
After witnessing the rescue she came to learn that her baby had been taken to Addington Hospital. She borrowed money to go there and over three days — from February 12 to February 15 — sat outside the hospital all day in the hope of hearing news about the child.
“I was too terrified to go inside and ask in case this aroused suspicion that I was the biological mother.”
The following weekend she confessed to her uncle, who is a police officer, that she was the mother of the baby. She was taken to hospital for medical treatment and then arrested.
The father refused to comment on the mother’s plea.